| In this thesis, a possible solution is proposed that can help customers shop much more easily with the help of their PDAs.; PDAs have become an ideal device for the customer to use as an assistant for shopping in a supermarket because they have specific advantages, such as portability and they work well for organizing and presenting information. Several projects have explored how to apply PDAs to e-commerce, especially in E-retailing. At the present time, customers have been able to go shopping with their PDAs in some countries.; However, PDAs still have some limitations caused especially by their hardware. The possibility of applying the technology of software agents to reduce these limitations is explored and a prototype of the agent system named Client of Shopping Assistant Agent System (CSAAS) is developed.; CSAAS helps the customer decide which products to purchase at which supermarket. It can search for the desired products at selected supermarkets for the customer by agents. Moreover, it can provide shopping advice based on the search results and produce a recommended shopping list for the customer at the target supermarket.; In addition to exploring the possibility of overcoming the limitations of PDAs, this thesis also presents the following original contributions, which are the development of a method for designing multi-agent system on TEEMA; a communication method used to communicate among agents; and a method to install TEEMA on a PDA. |
